Workshop 4
The Anthropology of
Decadence and the Abject
Convenor:
Jojada Verrips,
University of Amsterdam
Discussant:
Ulrike Davis-Sulikowski,
University of Vienna
Ulrike.Davis-Sulikowski@univie.ac.at
It is striking that the
fantas(ma)tic and real voyage into the realm
of decadence and darkness,
the underworld or hell, which for
ages has played such an
important role in (Western) literature
and popular culture, became
a source of inspiration as well as
a field of investigation
for anthropologists only in recent years.
One wonders why they forgot
for such a long time Frazer’s
observation with regard to
‘the permanent existence of…a solid
layer of savagery beneath
the surface of society’ and our moving
‘on a thin crust
which may at any moment be rent by subterranean
forces slumbering
below.’ It is time for a change if we want to gain
a deeper insight in, on the
one hand, the contemporary quest for
the sublime (in the sense
of ‘delightful horror’ as it crops up, for
instance, in the
consumption of neo-mythological movies replete
with sex and violence and
in the popularity of extreme forms of
recreation) and, on the
other, in more concrete manifestations
of the decadent and the
abject in a plethora of contexts such
as (civil) wars. This
workshop will focus on the occurrence and
meaning of different forms
of real and imagined decadence and
darkness, especially in the
allegedly civilised Western world.
’Arc de
Triomphe’: ein Mann spritzt
in seinen Mund (ab). On
Savage Sculpture –
or the Savagery of Censorship
Alexandra Schuessler,
University of Amsterdam
Murmur beneath the
Surface: The Noise of Art
Erik Steinskog, University
of Oslo
Trapdoors of the Fin-de
Siècle
Bonno Thoden van Velzen,
University of Amsterdam
Taking the Great Leap
Downwards: Gamblers from Dostoyevsky
to Reisz
Joyce Gogging, University
of Amsterdam
Art and Pornography in
Taiwan
David Barton, National
Central University, Chungli
Shit in the Arts of the
‘Wild West.’ Just a Matter of Decadence?
Or What Shit Art Might
(Also or Really) Mean
Jojada Verrips, University
of Amsterdam